Jack was first elected to the Council of the District of Columbia in a 1991 special election and has been re-elected seven times since then. He is the longest serving Councilmember in the history of the District of Columbia.

At the Council, Jack serves as Chair of the Council’s Committee on Finance and Revenue. He also serves on four standing Council committees – Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, Committee on Facilities and Procurement, Business & Economic Development, and Transportation & the Environment. He served as Chair Pro Tempore (Vice Chair) of the DC Council from 2001-2013.

Additionally, he currently represents the District on the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) Board of Directors and has served as Chairman of the Metro Board since January 2016.

Jack was the Council’s representative to the Metro Board of Directors from 1993-1999 (Board Chair, 1994 and 1997) and from 2015 to the present; and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (Board Chair, 1995).

During his tenure as Chair of Metro Jack has been credited with reorganizing the Board, fixing the finances, and was the moving force behind getting “Dedicated Funding” for Metro, the most important action in the last 40 years. Jack has been referred to as the “Mayor of Metro”.

On the Council, Jack was responsible for getting “Dedicated Funding” for the Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

In June 2018 Jack was elected as the Democratic National Committeeman who represents the District on the Democratic National Committee.

Aside from being Councilmember, Jack’s work in DC politics includes:

1992, 2004, and 2016 Electoral College Presidential Elector for the District of Columbia

Jack is a native of Pennsylvania. He received an economics degree with honors (cum laude) from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1975 and a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1978. He practiced law at the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Division of Enforcement. He served as Of Counsel for the law firm Epstein, Becker & Green (1984-1988), BakerHostetler (1988-2000), Patton Boggs (2000-2015), and Manatt (2015-2017).

Jack’s wife Noel passed away in 2003 after a long battle with breast cancer. He currently lives in Georgetown and is the father of triplets – Katherine, Christine, and John who we’re born in 1996. Jack is a member of Christ Episcopal Church of Georgetown and Foundry United Methodist Church.